Steve James was fully aware of how his life and career had come full circle. He wasn't prepared, however, for how overwhelming the emotions would become.

The documentary filmmaker from Hampton was at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, last month to premiere his new film "Life Itself," adapted from the memoirs of longtime movie critic Roger Ebert. His appearance at Sundance came 20 years after Ebert's embrace of "Hoop Dreams" had launched James' career, and nine months after Ebert's death from cancer.

"When I went to introduce the film that night, I had everything prepared that I wanted to say," James said by phone from Sundance. "I got about halfway through it, talking about how Roger had been the biggest champion of my work back then and right up until he passed.

"Then I started to say something about this film, and I just choked up. I was not expecting that at all. I don't think that's ever happened to me before."

Suddenly unable to speak, James managed to whisper, "Enjoy the film." When he turned to sit down, he was immediately hugged by festival director John Cooper, who had also broken down in tears moments earlier while calling James to the microphone.

"There was a feeling in the room that night," James said. "We were here to pay tribute to Roger — to celebrate his life and mourn his passing. People in Chicago had the chance to go to his funeral, but the people here at Sundance didn't. It spoke to the feeling in the room that night, and so did the sobbing you heard in the quiet moments of the film."

"Life Itself" was one of the most anticipated films at this year's festival. Cooper, who has been working at Sundance for 25 years, called it "the easiest film to program ever in my history." Chaz Ebert, Roger's widow, had worked with James and his crew throughout the production but declined to watch the finished product until its premiere. "It's a very 'Roger' thing to do, to want to make a discovery of a film at Sundance," she told the entertainment site, TheWrap. "I wanted to see it with everyone else."

For James, it was a very different experience than his first trip to Sundance in 1994, when he was an unknown 39-year-old filmmaker trying to find a distributor for his three-hour documentary about the lives of two young basketball players from inner-city Chicago. James, who played basketball at Hampton High School, had set out to make a 30-minute segment for PBS but ended up spending five years on a project that touched on race, class and family issues in American society.

It was Ebert and his TV colleague Gene Siskel who first championed "Hoop Dreams." Ebert called it "one of the best films about American life that I have ever seen," and his persistent praise helped the film find an audience and become one of the landmark documentaries in the history of the cinema.

"Hoop Dreams" did $11 million at the U.S. box office, establishing James' credentials and setting the stage for a career that has included such award-winning films at "Stevie" (2000) and "The Interrupters" (2011). He returned home to Hampton to film "No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson" (2010), which became one of the most successful films in ESPN's "30 for 30" documentary series.

Ebert published his memoir, "Life Itself," in 2011, chronicling his life, his career and the battle with cancer that in 2006 cost him his lower jaw and left him unable to speak or eat for the final seven years of his life. The Academy Award winning screenwriter Steven Zaillian brought the book to James and suggested that it would make a fine documentary.

In late 2012, James began working with Roger and Chaz Ebert, outlining an ambitious filming schedule with them, but a sudden decline in Ebert's health forced them to change strategies. In addition to interviews with friends and filmmakers and plenty of archival footage, James chronicled Ebert's intensive physical therapy. Many of the interviews had to be conducted by email, until in his final days Ebert could only write back, "I'm fading" and "I can't."

"I wasn't there with him physically at that point," James said. "But we had developed this really nice, intimate ongoing relationship through the emailing. Those last couple of days, I really felt it in a weird virtual way."

As the Sundance deadline approached, James launched a campaign at the online fundraising site Indiegogo, seeking to solicit $150,000 in donations to cover the editing and post-production process. He achieved that goal just as time was about to expire, drawing $153,875 in donations from 1,657 donors. James lauded the campaign as something Ebert himself would have appreciated — a community of movie lovers coming together to support an independent film.

Last month, "Life Itself" drew rave reviews and was one of the most popular films at Sundance. It will be released in theaters sometime this summer.

"The experience at Sundance was as great as any I've ever had there, and that includes 'Hoop Dreams'," James said. "I never thought I would say that again, but the way people embraced this film is just so gratifying. That screening … I have never had a better screening of a film than that one."